Apple Finally Selling HD TV Shows In Australia

One of the more notable gaps in Apple's local media lineup has been the ability to download TV episodes in HD. Movies have been on sale in HD for quite a while, but TV for Australian iTunes account holders was a strictly SD affair. That has finally changed, with Apple adding some HD TV shows to the local iTunes Store.

As Everything For The Man points out, Apple has started offering selected shows in HD. There's a 50 cent price premium on single episodes, which isn't too harsh; season passes vary in price (and in practice are high enough that waiting for the Blu-ray release will be tempting in some cases). Not every show you'd expect in HD is available, and we still can't rent TV episodes, unlike the US, but it's a step forward.

Comments

Jamie Guest

May 9, 2012, 9:36am

I've been using a US iTunes account for a month, having watch a whole heap of TV shows - I've never seen an option to rent them. But the HD episodes are only $3 to buy, or $20-$35 for a season typically.

Will have to check this out - but I suspect the prices will be comparable to BRD. Since the quality is noticeably worse, and you don't get extra features, plus you use up your own download quota to get the content, that's a price I'm not willing to pay. Cut the price in half and it might be worth it.

What business does Cupertino have selling TV shows, music... content. They had no part in their creation. They sell overpriced computers to people who belong to some sort of cult that I will never understand. Please 'cult' people, don't give them your entertainment dollars too.

If David Jones started selling 'David Jones' computers and phones and insisted on a whole closed ecosystem nightmare, I would run like hell, not dive in like the aforementioned 'cult' members. But hey, good luck to you buying Cds and DVDs for your design-y ithingo. It's just a level of noobianism that, once passed, is difficult to regress to or understand. I simply can't project my mind back that far.

Assuming you're talking about HD movies you've downloaded from iTunes which are supposed to have 5.1 audio - it bears remembering that Apple also encodes a stereo audio track for the purpose of streaming and devices which don't support the surround codec.

I think there's a setting in iTunes you can change. Or, if using VLC to play the movies just change the audio track to "surround".

You can't rent TV shows in the US anymore either. They did briefly offer TV rentals for some networks shows in the US but removed the option, last year if I recall correctly. The networks hated it and never allowed Apple to offer rentals of any really popular shows. Surprise, surprise it wasn't a big success and so it was removed.

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